This invention relates generally to an acoustical transducer having an electrode configuration to launch a steered acoustical beam into a bulk acoustic wave body for signal processing. For example, the transducer may be used to determine the angle of arrival and/or frequency of electromagnetic waves.
Various prior art transducers are used to launch acoustic beams, but they typically do not steer the beam. Other apparatus such as diffraction gratings are used with a single transducer to process signals at radio frequencies. It is important to process a wide band of high frequency signals with a high dynamic amplitude range. Neither surface acoustic wave devices nor microwave superconducting strip transmission devices achieve high dynamic amplitude ranges over a wide band.